grass and became wedged under a fence.
She recovered to finish sixth in that race,
but that result had dropped her to fourth in
the world standings and nine points behind
series leader van De Ven with just one race
the following day to wrap up the series.
Duncan convincingly won Sunday’s final race,
crossing the line a whopping 46 seconds ahead
of runner-up Livia Lancelot, the defending world
champion from France, but Duncan’s 6-1 score-
card from the weekend was not quite enough and
she eventually had to settle for a world ranking of
No.3 for 2017. Fontanesi won the world title by one
point from Lancelot, with Duncan third overall,
agonisingly just one point further back (equal
with van de Ven, but ahead on a count-back).
Duncan’s Altherm JCR Yamaha Racing
Team boss, Motueka’s former GP star Josh
Coppins, was devastated for Duncan.
“We took her race one result to the jury and they
rewound the results to the previous lap (before
the track had been completely wrecked and the
race abandoned, therefore assigning the win to
Duncan),” Coppins explained. “But then the FIM
(the world governing body) took legal advice
and decided they hadn’t followed the correct
FINAL
STANDINGS
procedure with the red (stop race) flag and so
therefore they had to revert to the original race
result, leaving Courtney sixth instead of first.
“On day two Courtney dominated. She lapped
all but one rider, including lapping the new
world champion (Fontanesi),” Coppins said.
“Unfortunately we are at the end of our
second season of what should-have-been or
could-have-been and bad luck and unforeseen
circumstances, all out of Courtney’s hands,
have taken two world titles away from her now.
Naturally we’re disappointed. We can only learn
from this and try to be better next year.”
Magnanimous in defeat, Duncan took it all in her
stride. “I rode as hard as I could in that second
race and actually lapped the new world champion,
which made me feel a little bit better,” she said.
“I’ve turned the page and am looking ahead
to next year. I’ll be looking to minimise some of
the mistakes I made earlier in the year and I’ll be
back for another attempt on that world title.”
Duncan notched up four wins out of her 12 starts in
the 2017 WMX championships, more than any other
rider – Fontanesi and Lancelot scored two wins each,
van de Ven won on three occasions and Belgian
rider Amadine Verstappen won the other race.
I’ll be looking to minimise some of
the mistakes I made earlier in the
year and I’ll be back for another
attempt on that world title
WMX Championship Top Ten:
1. Kiara Fontanesi (ITA, YAM), 233 points 6. Amandine Verstappen (BEL, KTM), 184
2. Livia Lancelot (FRA, KAW), 232 7. Nicky van Wordragen (NED, YAM), 119
3. Courtney Duncan (NZL, YAM), 231 8. Francesca Nocera (ITA, SUZ), 95
4. Nancy Van De Ven (NED, YAM), 231 9. Virginie Germond (SUI, YAM), 94
5. Larissa Papenmeier (GER, SUZ), 194 10. Shana van der Vlist (NED, KTM), 89